Sewing Vinyl: Make a Zippered Bag

Sewing vinyl can be intimidating if you’ve never tried it before, but just because it looks and feels very different from a fabric like cotton doesn’t mean it’s difficult to sew. Aurora Sisneros shows you how easy sewing vinyl can be and takes you step-by-step through making a great vinyl zippered bag. The vinyl bag is clear, so it’s easy to see what’s inside, but is still decorative with accents of cotton fabric and a colored zipper. Aurora then makes the bag even easier to see what’s inside by making the opening extra wide and creating corner gussets to give the bag a bottom.

Vinyl Fabric

Vinyl is a very durable, versatile fabric that can be used for many projects. It also comes in a variety of colors, not just the clear used on the zippered bag in this video. Vinyl is great to use on projects where messes might be involved, such as tablecloths or place-mats because it is very easy to clean. It also comes in a variety of textures and weights, depending on the type of project you are using it on.

Pinning Vinyl

Sewing vinyl is similar to sewing oilcloth or other laminated fabrics in that pins can leave permanent holes in the fabric. If your project has accents in other fabrics, like the cotton on the top of the zippered bag in the video, place pins through that fabric. Pins can also be placed in the seam allowance or directly on a seam so that any holes in the vinyl are hidden.

Sizing Zippers

Zippers are great additions to bags and other projects, however they don’t always come in the exact size you want. The bag in this video took advantage of the longer zipper in order to create a wide opening and add decorative tabs to the end. This technique can also make a zipper easier to open and close because of the extra pull tabs on the ends. If you want a zipper that perfectly fits your bag it is easy to shorten a zipper. One thing you want to consider is whether the zipper teeth are plastic or metal; plastic can be cut with a pair of scissors while metal will need to be pulled out with pliers in a small area so that scissors can then be used on the zipper tape. Also, plastic zipper teeth can be stitching over using the foot pedal while metal zipper teeth should only be stitched over using the hand wheel.